One of Ours
by Stembuk
Summary: One of these days, the inhabitants of Tracy Island are going to learn there's No Such Thing as an event free holiday where International Rescue are concerned.
1. Introduction

_Another FicSwap entry, which I thought I'd posted already. Ah, well. I can't find the original brief, so I can't credit anybody, but if you know who it was I'll edit to include. It was something along the lines of 'A Swiss holiday goes very wrong'._

_I also don't actually know anything about the inside of CERN, so I'm kinda... making it up as I go along, 'kay?_


	2. Chapter 1

Other than the soft tinkle of the spoon stirring his tea, the only other sound in the dimly lit room was the loud, monotonous ticking of the Grandfather Clock. The large, bald man sat nervously in the chair on the opposite side of the room, a thin sheen of sweat covering his head. Eventually the first man stopped stirring, tapped his spoon on the brim of his cup and set it down.

'The last time I utilised your supposed skills, you cost me a considerable amount of money,' he stated, with a telling look to the newly replaced window dominating one side of the room. A careful observer would have noticed that the brickwork surrounding it seemed to have been recently replaced, also - money had obviously been spent, but it didn't quite match the rest of the walls. 'You are fortunate that my own security cameras provided the images and information I required when they chased you here.'

The man known as The Hood squirmed under his gaze. Never mind that it had been his plan in the first place to force his half brother to nullify International Rescues' automatic camera detector, that it had been _he _who had risked life and limb whilst they pursued him. No - it was, of course, the _General_ who had been successful in his attempts to photograph the Thunderbird craft. Much good that it had done him – The Hood knew for a fact that just because he may have photographs and film of them, it didn't mean he could begin to replicate them without details of their internal workings.

Still. Nobody had tried to kill or arrest him since he had been summon- _invited_ to the Generals' property, so he must have plans for him.

'You have a chance. A single chance to repay your debt of failure to me.'

The Hood tilted his head slightly to the side. 'My debt of failure? I was the one who - '

The General sliced his hand through the air. 'I do not care what you did or did not do. The fact remains it was my cameras and my men who supplied the images I required.'

'Then what do you expect of me?'

The General reached into a drawer of his ornate desk and tossed a folder to The Hood. He opened it and flipped through the pages, his eyebrows raising as he did so. 'I do not think even I could manage to steal this item.'

The General chuckled slightly at the comment. 'No, perhaps not... it is a little big to tuck into a pocket. No, Agent, I want you to recover the item listed on page 12, destroy any information you can find on it's creation, and remove any information about it stored on their computers.'

'Not an easy task.'

'Which is why you were summoned!' The sudden bellow had The Hood flinching. 'Do not fail me again. So long as you meet the objectives, you are free to do as you wish with whatever else you may find. I am sure an... intelligent man such as yourself can find many uses for the other items.'

It might have been the Generals' imagination, but he could have sworn that The Hood's eyes lit up. 'Oh, I am sure I could find one or two interested parties,' he mused.


	3. Chapter 2

It was through crisp, clear, and sharp air that the Skythrust sliced its' way, the heat from her engines leaving long contrails as she crossed the mountain boundary below. A few miles beyond, the nose dipped and she started to make a gentle curving decent to the International Airport ahead.

Aboard the aircraft, the head stewardess made a final walk of the passenger cabins. Long months of experience on this flight told her that the pilot would turn on the fasten seatbelt sign in another five minutes or so – just enough time to make sure everything was tucked away for landing, that parents had recovered all their children's toys and all the cups, cutlery and dishes were tidied up from the last meal.

She sighed as she entered the first class cabin. It was barely a third full this trip – not really unusual, as this was the off season – and she saw that he had done it again. Whatever the high foreheaded, glasses wearing man was working on was obviously of vital importance to him - but to her, it was simply a hassle. Each time she entered the cabin, she gently scolded him to put the vast swath of papers he spread out away, and each time she returned he had spread them out again. Now he was gently chewing on the center of a pencil held in his mouth as he frantically scribbled another calculation in the margin of a sheet. Despite herself, the stewardess found herself thinking that he actually looked... kinda cute.

Shaking her head to clear the thought, she quickly checked the clipboard she was carrying to check his name. 'Excuse me - Mr Hackenbacker?'

The only reply was the continuation of his frantic scribbling. She cleared her throat and tried again.

'Mr Hackenbaker!' With an annoyed grunt, the passenger behind her lowered his newspaper, giving her an icy glare as he turned the page. The angle of the sun coming through the window almost made his eyes seem like they'd caught fire. 'We're going to be landing soon, Mr Hackenbacker. I really must insist you tidy up and fasten your safety belt.'

'We're landing? All – already? That can't be right, we've only just taken off.'

She smiled down at him. 'We took off four hours ago. We're about to land in Geneva.'

'Really?'

'I'm afraid so. Can I give you a hand to put your papers away?'

Her reward was a shy smile. 'I, er – yes. If, if you could put those in order for me, it would, would be a great help. Thank you.' He blinked again. 'Geneva? Already?'

The stewardess handed him the sorted pile of papers. 'Lost in your thought?'

'I, I suppose so. Who would have thought a gravity reduction device would b - be so hard to work out?'


	4. Chapter 3

For what seemed the two hundredth time in two hours, Tin-Tin Kyrano once again checked her watch and wonder where Brains had gotten to. The NWAC Skythrust he had arrived on had landed almost three hours ago, and even allowing for time to clear customs he should still have shown up by now. She was about to go and check with security, to see if they knew anything, when the doors slid open and Brains entered the airport – with a stewardess on his arm.

Tin-Tin blinked. Then blinked again in case she was still seeing things. If it had been Alan, or Virgil even Gordon, she wouldn't have been surprised. But Brains?

The Stewardess laughed at something he had just said as she looked around. Spotting Tin-Tin she tugged on his arm and pulled him in her direction. 'Is this one yours?' she asked.

Tin-Tin, briefly, was lost for words. 'Um... yes?' she eventually managed to was rewarded by a genuine smile. 'You hang on to him, honey. He's a keeper.' She kissed Brains on the cheek, tucked his hand under Tin-Tin's arm and sashayed off.

Tin-Tin looked at Brains. 'What was that all about?'

'I, er, I'm not sure, but – I, I think I just had a date?' Brains looked more puzzled than he ever had.

Almost exactly two hours later, Tin-Tin sat with her eyes tightly squeezed as the gondola swayed slightly in the breeze. It may have happened over a year ago but she still had the occasional bad dream when the tropical winds kicked up back on the island. It wasn't the peril, or the situation, but the feeling of being helpless, of being out of control as the cable car had hurtled downwards with seemingly no way of stopping... she shivered and held onto Brains' arm tighter.

After what seemed like an eternity a loud grating sound and thump announced that the car had arrived at the top of the mountain. Tin-Tin was definitely looking forwards to getting to Paradise Peaks again: before the dramatic finale to her last visit, she had thoroughly enjoyed herself and her surroundings. This time, she was determined to relax even more. A long, hot, bubbly soak was in order, she decided, followed by a lazy evening meal and a drink or two in the bar, then a relatively early night before Brains and hers' tour of the Collider tomorrow.

She had been quite willing to spill one of the brother's blood to get to accompany Brains on this trip. 60 years old and still going strong, the invitation requested his presence, along with other eminent scientists and engineers from around the world, at a special celebration to be held in a couple of day's time to mark the anniversary of her being first switched on. Over the course of her lifetime the Large Hadron Collider had astounded the scientific world with her discoveries, and showed no sign of stopping soon. In the end, it had come down to a game of rock, paper, scissors between Mr Tracy, Virgil and herself to decide who was going, with Grandma standing between the two men and holding their ears to stop them arguing any more. But she'd won the competition, and the engineer inside her was squeeing at the thought of getting up close and personnel with the Colliders' insides tomorrow.


	5. Chapter 4

Though part of the tour group, he wasn't paying any attention to the guide. Rather, he was going over the layout in his head again, making sure he fully knew the route from _here_ to _there_ even if he'd never done the trip before. He hadn't, but long hours of practise let The Hood move around the places he infiltrated as if it was second nature to him. The younger him had discovered a sure way of being spotted was to not be prepared, to relay on internal signs to guide you around, something which made you stand out like a sore thumb.

He casually drifted towards the back of the group and the access doorway to the secured area. Admittedly, the doorway was locked and coded, but the bribe he had given to the guard on duty would take care of that – and if the guard decided to be a hero or hold out for a higher bribe... well, that's what mental domination was for.

The Hood bumped into somebody, turned to them to offer a meaningless apology, and had to clamp down on every instinct he had not to react. Tin-Tin! Kyrano's child, and what was his name... Hackenbacker! The last time he had seen his niece and her companion was in the desert, hunting for that lost treasure, and now... it was kind of ironic, in a way. He was here to repay a debt caused by International Rescue, and here were two of their members, unaware of the hunter in their midst. He smiled thinly, feeling the mask on his face crinkle in response. Perhaps, after his business here, he would drop by pay them a personnel visit, let them know how much he appreciated their constant interference.

But pleasure later. Business first.

Quietly, carefully, he tried the door and found it, as arranged, unlocked. It was the work of a moment to slip through and close it again, followed by a few twists and turns to follow before he reached the emergency staircase. Three floors down, and a quarter mile across the complex, he reached his first objective – the storage containing the item the General desired. Surprisingly small, once he had found it, The Hood slipped the thermos-looking container into a pocket before moving on.

'And now we reach the main observation room of the Collider itself,' the tour guide was saying. 'It's from here that countless scientist have made thousands of breakthroughs of which we all reap the benefits, and you're not buying this for a second are you?' The guide cracked a smile at the group. 'Sorry, forget who I was talking to for a moment. You know this stuff already, right?'

A murmur of agreeance rippled around the room. 'Which is why, Ladies and Gentlemen, we've arranged something special for you. We were due a routine test, but instead we're going to try to recreate the same experiment that first confirmed the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle. There's no guarantee of success, but, well – that's all part of the fun of science, isn't it? It'll take about ten minutes for the power levels to reach threshold, so please, feel free to wander around and ask question, but also please – don't touch anything.'

Almost without looking, Tin-Tin reached out and swatted the back of Brains' hand as it drifted out towards an input board.

Almost ten minutes later, The Hood was swiftly rifling through the stored computer tapes of the Collider. Sure, his mole had told him where they were stored, but not where the one he needed was kept. It was beyond his security clearance.- one of those peskily annoying but couldn't be helped things. At least he knew what he was looking for, which cut down on his search. He finally ended up with a pile of a half dozen micro tapes, then threw them into his satchel before taking out a device that seemed to be a paperback-sized box attached to a short rubber stick with twin metal prongs sticking out. Rapidly but methodically, he jabbed it against the remaining tapes in the drawer: each time there was a loud snap of electric and a visible spark leapt onto the tapes. For their part, several of them started to smoke in return.


	6. Chapter 5

'We have a fire alarm in the records room.'

'Confirmed. Who's the nearest guard?'

'Matterson. He's in the next corridor.'

Absolutely typical, Matterson thought when his radio buzzed. He was about to treat his self to a cup of coffee when it did. In his three years working here it had been quiet, but by no means uninteresting – it was surprising how often somebody got lost in the labyrinth of corridors and tunnels down here, and to be honest he found the chats he had whilst leading them out interesting. 'Matterson to control. Who's lost now?'

'Negative on the lost sheep, Matterson. We have a fire warning in the records room.'

Matterson blinked. 'That's a new one. On my way.' Jogging down the corridor and up the next, he paused outside the door to feel for heat through the upper half and handle before cracking it open. What he saw when he peered through it caused him to snatch his pistol from its holster. 'Halt and identify!' he shouted towards the figure doing... _something _with the records. Whoever he was, he dropped the device he had been holding and dived behind a cabinet. Matterson had started to reach for his radio when the figure popped back into view, this time loosening several shots off towards him, narrowing missing him. Unluckily, though, one caught his radio, shattering it.

Matterson threw his self to one side and scrambled into cover. Whoever this intruder was, he kept firing shot after shot towards him, forcing Matterson to stay in cover. He bunched his legs under him, figuring that whoever was attacking him had to run out of ammunition sometime.

A brief pause almost tempted Matterson to poke his head out, but he'd seen enough war films to know that was probably a Bad Idea. Seconds – or maybe minutes - later he heard running footsteps and the intruder made a run for the door. He was almost through when Matterson crashed into him, propelling the duo out into the corridor.

The Hood's gun went skidding away from him as he landed under the guard. Immediately, he made a grab for the guards', and the two of them struggled for it. Several shots were fired randomly as they wrestled for possession. Unseen and unknown to the pair of them, they penetrated into the pipework and cables running the length of the corridors' ceiling. Several massive sparks and arcs of energy danced out of the pies and cables to made their way down their coverings, swiftly reaching some form of junction box which exploded.

It started a chain reaction, box after box exploding, faster and faster and the energy they contained fed back into the reaction. In a matter of scant moments the chain of destruction lanced it's way towards the Control Room. Alarms were sounding, and a few of the guests on the tour were actually applauding, obviously thinking that the staff were putting on a show for them. It took only a glance at the readouts for the experienced engineers in the group to recognise the seriousness of the situation. Almost instinctively Brains and Tin-Tin leant over the nearest monitoring station, calling out to each other as the examined the readings.

'Power is surging.'

'The, ah, the safeties are being jumped -'

'Cascading failures in the control baffles - '

'Automatic and manual cut offs are, are not functioning - '

'Readings are going beyond red line here - '

Brains snapped his head around to look at the gauges on tin-Tin's side, before grabbing her around the waist and and throwing the two of them flat as the top of the console exploded in a shower of metal shards and sparks. Tin-Tin nodded her thanks to Brains while he laid on top of her, one arm curled protectively around her head. Once he was sure the small explosion was over he dropped his mouth next to her ear, raising his voice to be heard over the bedlam in the room.

'C-call Mr Tracy,' he told her in a voice that meant he didn't want her to use a phone. Nodding in reply, she retrieved her bag from where it had fallen and dug inside for her compact mirror, with optional videophone.

'I'm getting another surge.'

'Can you shunt it?'

'I can try to move it into the Collider's batteries...'

'The Collider's fully charged!'

The two workers looked at each other, eyes wide and with colour draining from their faces. 'There's nowhere for it to go...'


	7. Chapter 6

Strictly speaking, the control room had no need of the huge windows which dominated one side of it, overlooking the vast array of instruments a full story below it. Rather, it was a show piece, something the people who worked there could point to when the grant makers and donators wanted to see where all their money went. Today, though, at this point in time, it provided a second purpose and shattered outwards into uncountable pieces, saving the lives of the group in the control room by allowing the fire and debris from the remaining consoles somewhere to vent when they domino exploded from the energy feedback of the last surge.

For a good few minutes, there was no movement. The room was scarcely recognisable from what it was before – debris, console parts, ceiling tiles and wires were scattered everywhere, a a horrid stench of burning filled the air. With bent glasses and one lens cracked, Brains' head emerged from under the heavy table a few of the occupants had managed to hide behind, scant moments before the explosion had over taken them.'T-Tin-Tin!' he called, the effort making him cough. 'Tin-Tin! A-are you safe?'

A pained groan answered him. 'I'm here, Brains. I'm trapped. I think – I think my leg is broken.' Brains quickly searched the room until he found her, one leg pinned under a heavy bank of computers that had fallen onto her leg. He knelt next to her. 'Did you m-manage to get through?' he quietly asked.

'I don't know.' Tin-Tin sucked in a breath. 'I lost my compact when the surge hit. How about you?'

'I, er...' Brains looked embarrassed and apologetic at the same time. 'I, I forgot to put my watch on this m – morning.'

Tin-Tin groaned, then hissed in pain. 'So we may be trapped here for a while.'

'I – I – I'm sorry. I've let you down.'

Tin-Tin patted Brains' hand. 'Don't worry. It's not like you could have predicted this. Though I swear I'm never coming here again, until the next time.' She offered a thin smile. 'We _did_ want to see the Collider's insides.'

Brains was no Doctor – Medical Doctor, that was – but even he could see Tin-Tin was putting a brave face on things. 'We, we need to get you out from, from under there.'

Tin-Tin looked at the heavy piece of machinery on her. 'And ideas how?'

'We're en – engineers,' Brains answered. 'There's nothing we can't, can't do if we p – put our heads together.'

It was around half an hour later that they small group had managed to cobble an idea and working system together. A good twenty minutes of it had been taken up by stripping and gathering enough wire together to find a long enough cable for the rest of the plan. One end was lashed and secured around the console pinning Tin-Tin's leg down: the other had been managed to be looped around one of the couple of huge coolant pipes running through the room past the shattered windows and pulled back again, and again lashed around a bigger console. This one, leverage had been employed to raise it up to the window sill. Being heavier, as long as the cable held, it should drop enough to raise the one on the other end up at least enough to get Tin-Tin out from underneath.

'H-here.' Brains passed his friend a wooden pointer. 'Bite on this. I'm afraid this will, this will be painful.' His voice was full of apology. She smiled, thinly, back at him and took hold of his hand. 'I'm ready when you are, Brains.'

Brains looked across the room to the small group holding the counter weight ready. Taking a final, deep, settling breath, he nodded to them. After a three-count, they pushed the console out of the window. As they figured, the cable snapped taunt and pulled the console Tin-Tin was trapped under up and away.

Brains winced when he saw her leg, but quickly recovered and pulled her free in a swift, smooch movement. He didn't fully trust the improvised pulley system to hold up for too long, and wanted her to be free from underneath in case it failed.

Tin-Tin had passed out from the sudden pain. Swiftly but steadily, Brains splintered her leg as best he could whilst he had the chance. His best guess was that she had broken it, but fortunately not as a protruding fracture. That would have been really messy and nasty. Finally, though, there was nothing else he could do, so he settled for sitting on the ground and cradling her head on his lap.


	8. Chapter 7

It was almost an hour later that another rumbling shook the area. This one, though, didn't have the whining sound of discharging energy. This one had a more regular... grinding sound to it. Something very familiar.

'Something's happening...' one of the other visitors informed him. 'One of the walls down there is – not cracking... shattering? But in a circular pattern. Almost like - '

Suddenly Brains knew. He knew what was happening down below, knew what was about to emerge from the wall – could even make a guess as to which of the brothers was piloting The Mole.

And there was something else. Brains understood, now, what International Rescue meant to those trapped. The emotion that stirred within him – the same one that must stir in the hearts, the souls of those trapped when they appeared to save them. Knowing that no matter the odds, they wouldn't give up.

_Hope. _


End file.
